


You Belong With Her

by AriadnesThread



Category: You Belong With Me (Song)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-20
Updated: 2012-12-20
Packaged: 2017-11-21 18:29:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/600822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AriadnesThread/pseuds/AriadnesThread
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Taylor had been last into the showers and now the girls' locker room is empty. Empty except for the captain of the cheerleading squad, who has her pinned one armed to the lockers and is giving her a look that could melt a hole through lead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Belong With Her

**Author's Note:**

  * For [morphosyntactic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/morphosyntactic/gifts).



> Thanks to listedheart for giving me such an interesting prompt and to Peter, whose willingness to beta-read this last minute was born purely out of altruism and not at all because I offered him lesbian cheerleaders.

Taylor has three days of perfect – three days of holding hands and shy glances and a first, fumbling kiss – with Scott before it all catches up with her. Before Meg catches up with her. Whatever her failings as a girlfriend –ex-girlfriend-, Meg would make a great ninja. Taylor had been last into the showers and now the changing room is empty. Empty except for the captain of the cheerleading squad, who has her pinned one armed to the lockers and is giving her a look that could melt a hole through lead.

  
‘Taylor,’ Meg says almost pleasantly. ‘I thought we should talk.’

Taylor’s just in a towel. The lockers are cold against her back but the rest of her is hot with embarrassment.

‘You know my name,’ she stammers. Girls like Meg don’t acknowledge people like her.

‘I make a point of learning someone’s name when they steal my boyfriend out from under me,’

Meg replies. ‘Is he your first boyfriend?’

Taylor thinks of retorting, sees Meg’s expression and nods. Her eyes communicate quite clearly that she’d happily roast marshmallows on Taylor if she was on fire and yet her mouth is still set into a perfect, practiced smile. The smile makes it worse somehow.

‘First lesson,’ Meg says. ‘Pretend to be interested in him. Ask him stuff. Laugh at his jokes and shit.’

‘I am interested in him,’ Taylor rallies. She is in love with Scott. She is.

‘That’s good,’ Meg allows. ‘Because he’s a narcissist. Has he written you a song yet?’

‘What? I- Why...?’ Taylor stammers.

‘Some advice,’ Meg continues. She does that thing only popular people can do, where they keep talking and everyone else has to just shut up and take it. ‘If the grammar sucks don’t correct it. He doesn’t like that.’ Meg pauses for a second, then her smile snaps back on like it was never gone. It’s unsettling. ‘It’s not about you. It’s about him showing how deep and artistic and misunderstood he is.’

Taylor flinches a little. She’d knocked a book open last time she was in Scott’s room –door wide open, naturally- and when she’d gone to put it back she’d seen a scrawl of musical notation and a name. Her name. Then she’d tucked it back under the book and sat on the bed to wait for Scott and tried to keep her face from smiling too much.

‘...Smells like rain, my ass,’ Meg was saying. Taylor wondered, not for the first time how she’d got into this situation in the first place.

‘Um, I’m going to be late for next period,’ she stammers.

‘And you think I fucking care?’ Meg pushes her firmly back into the locker. ‘Third lesson: cheats don’t fucking change. I give it a month before he’s standing you up for a newer model. And you know I actually might pity you: at least I’ve got you to look down on.’

With that she gives Taylor a final little push, flicks her hair and stalks out of the locker room.

‘What happened to lesson two?’ Taylor manages, but the locker room door was already swinging shut.

 

-o0o-

Dating an utter loser like Scott had been dangerous enough for Meg socially. Girls like her were supposed to date seniors, or athletes or seniors who were athletes. Not pasty little geek boys like Scott. She’d gone out with him out of curiosity and because she liked the shapes his long fingers made when he played guitar. She’d stayed with him because he was comfortable: he’d let her actually watch a movie rather than trying to jam a hand up her skirt before the trailers were even over, he’d never find anyone better and –she was less than proud of this- it was an ego trip the way he looked at her everyday, like he was faintly stunned by her presence. Also he had an Xbox.  
Only now he’s found someone markedly worse and now people are saying ‘what could Meg Nelson possibly do to get dumped for someone like Taylor?’ Is she crap in bed? Is she a total skank? Is she pregnant? People are just loving the speculation. Her so called friends are loving it too.

‘We all want you to know we’re totally here for you,’ Tammy says, blinking at her over two sets of fake lashes. ‘If you want to talk.’

Meg rolls her eyes. ‘And I was thinking we’d just sit here in silence.’

‘You don’t need to hold it all in.’ Tammy leans across the table. Any closer and she’ll be holding Meg’s hand. Her nails are rose pink talons: Meg can tell she did them herself because the tips are smudged on her right hand. They’re so long it takes Tammy twice as long to text as the rest of them but that’s okay. Meg has claws too. ‘We can see you’re upset.’

In her head, Meg is dropping from a rafter, the wind singing through her hair. Her legs lock around Tammy’s chest at the same moment the knife plunges into her throat. Arterial blood covers the plastic surface of the table as Meg regains her footing, blades sprouting from her hands.

‘I’m not upset.’ Meg puts on her best yearbook photo smile and wishes real life had save points.  
Meg may possibly be a sociopath. Or she’s having Assassin’s Creed withdrawal symptoms. Whichever.

Tammy opens her mouth to say something else and Meg cuts her off.

‘He’s just a boy,’ she says. The smile seems welded to her face. ‘Who fucking cares?’  
Tammy smiles, narrowing her eyes. She probably thinks she looks predatory and dangerous, or maybe her eyelashes are too heavy. ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘Friends are the most important thing.’

Friends.

 

-o0o-

Hair like summer, smells like rain,  
Laugh like sunlight, eyes like pain

Taylor listens to the lyrics and tries to look like it’s the most romantic thing anyone’s even done for her. It is, technically, but only because she’s never dated before. Smells like rain. She wonders what he compared Meg’s hair to and what ‘eyes like pain’ is supposed to mean. Does she have a killer death glare or go around with constant bitch face or what? Actually, both of those sound like Meg. God, is anything in this song original?

Then she realises that Scott’s finished and looking at her expectantly. Taylor tries to think of something nice to say and prays fervently for a distraction. It comes in the form of someone hammering on the door.

  
-o0o-

  
Meg is already kind of drunk when she marches up Scott’s porch steps and hammers on his door, wishing it was his face. It’s been a really crappy few weeks, made crappier by him waving his new blonde arm candy in her face and if he wants her to see then she’ll see. She’ll see right inside his bedroom as she’s getting her third favourite sweater and her brother’s crappy action films and those earphones she loaned him that one time and never got back.

Taylor opens the door and Meg takes a certain satisfaction in the way her eyes double in size and her mouth hangs open slightly as though she’d winded. Maybe she actually is a little because the second the door opens Meg is shoving a cardboard box of Scott’s stuff into her chest. Taylor’s arms close around it reflexively, like a shield.

‘Came for my stuff,’ Meg says in a pretty bad attempt at a breezy casual tone, already shouldering past her and heading for the stairs.

Taylor catches her arm and god she looks like a Disney princess, all wide eyes, blonde hair and helpless expression.

‘Um, I don’t really feel comfortable...’ she begins but Meg just doesn’t stop and what’s Taylor going to do, tackle her to the floor? You get a certain amount of strength doing triple somersaults and Meg knows for a fact that Taylor can’t even hit a baseball two times out of three.  
‘It’s all right,’ Meg calls over her shoulder. ‘I know where his bedroom is.’

She hasn’t brought a bag so she takes one of his, a threadbare old thing that’ll just about last the journey back to her house. She skims lightning fast across his DVDs: Taken, hers; Iron Man 2, his; Bulletproof Monk, hers; Cruel Intentions, hers; Titanic, obviously Taylor’s. Urgh. She tries to think of something scathing but can’t. It wasn’t so bad when Taylor was just clinging onto Scott’s arm in the corridors but now she’s slotting into Meg’s old life. Whatever. The Princess Bride. Meg drops the bag. There’s a copy of that same movie in the box she gave him. The movie she laughed at him for owning for a full half hour. The movie he was always trying to get her to watch. The movie she was coming round to liking. The movie that he’d replaced so he’d never have to talk to her again.

Meg was angry before, now she’s pissed. Super mega pissed. If Taylor has her old life now that’s fine but Meg is taking back her stuff. That’s her sweater hung over the back of Scott’s chair. Her earphones plugged into his computer –no wait his, but whatever he owes her a pair, she’s taking them. Her highlighter on his desk. There’s nothing else of hers to take so she sets his alarm clock early out of spite and –as a final measure- grabs his copy of Assassin’s Creed 2 because if she can’t play it then he shouldn’t be able to either.

Someone knocks on the door, realises halfway it’s not Meg’s house and comes in anyway. Only Taylor is that awkward. This should be fun.

‘Um,’ Taylor doesn’t quite come into the room, as though she expects the door to shield her.

‘Scott’s kind of wondering when you’re going to leave.’

‘So he sent you?’ Meg drops onto his bed. ‘I’ll leave when he comes up here and faces me, how about that?’

‘I think I should...’

‘No.’ Meg waves her off. ‘Don’t. I’m going. I don’t want to smell anymore of his stupid aftershave than I have to... I just...’

The world sways around her as she tries to stand.

Taylor runs forward to catch her and Meg leans into her for a minute and inhales something that smells faintly like coconut but mostly like soap. Then, as she reflects that there’s actually a decent rack pressed against her arm, she remembers that this is Taylor who’s helping her stand. Taylor who she hates and should not, in this or any other universe, be sniffing in her ex boyfriend’s bedroom.

‘I’m fine,’ she says gruffly, all but shoving Taylor away. ‘ ‘M not even that drunk: I just skipped breakfast.’

‘You’ve been drinking?’ Taylor looks mildly alarmed. Meg half expects her to produce a string of pearls to clutch.

‘I’m fine.’ Meg stands. Shoulders the bag. Doesn’t sway as she does it. Good.

Scott appears: cordless phone in one hand, door knob in the other.

‘Is she still here?’

Taylor looks at him concerned. ‘I’m not sure she should be walking home on her own right now.’

‘She broke in.’ Scott has a way of getting shrill when he’s nervous. Another thing Meg won’t have to put up with any longer. ‘If she’s not gone in five minutes I’m calling the cops.’

‘She didn’t break in: I opened the door.’ Taylor turns to Meg. ‘Do you have anyone who can pick you up?’

Her brother, but he’s not free for another hour. Her parents will kill her if they know she’s been drinking and she’ll never live it down if her friends hear about this. She shakes her head.

‘Not for a while. I’ll walk.’

‘She’s not staying in my house.’

Your parents’ house, Meg thinks because seriously, seeing him try to do the whole alpha male thing is just sad.

‘Well,’ Taylor says, her face twisting as though she’s sentencing herself to the electric chair. ‘I guess she’ll just have to wait at mine.’

Scott’s face creases. ‘Won’t that be weird for your parents with you over here?’

‘Not if I go with her.’ Taylor takes the bag off Meg and guides her down the stairs. It’s a masterful performance and Meg doesn’t want to ruin it although Taylor has the upper body strength of a day old kitten. Scott stares after them from the landing.

‘Well I’m not letting her walk home drunk in the dark,’ Taylor says and is it Meg’s imagination or is her voice more tart than apologetic. Meg turns around and smirks at Scott as Taylor ushers her out of the front door. Best. Cockblock. Ever.

-o0o-

Taylor’s not sure how she ended up with Meg Nelson sprawled on her bed. All she knows is it is happening and now she has to deal with it. For a second she’s grateful she doesn’t have to deal with Scott and then she closes the curtains, guiltily, as though that would make her a better girlfriend.

‘Trouble in paradise?’ Meg asks and Taylor curses inwardly. For someone flat out on their back, staring at a virtual stranger’s ceiling, Meg doesn’t miss much.

‘We’ve had a very nice evening actually,’ Taylor replies icily. ‘Until it got gate crashed.’

Meg snorts with laughter. ‘Could have been worse. Could have been Homecoming or something.’  
She sounds pissed but the amusement is real too. Taylor doesn’t know how to deal with that. It’d be easier if she was angry.

‘I am sorry about that,’ she says hesitantly. It had been easier back then to think of Meg as an obstacle, not another person. Before she and Scott got together Taylor had hated Meg to the point of obsession, wondering what she and Scott were doing, how far they’d gone together. Now she thinks about it, that’s kind of messed up. ‘That wasn’t fair to you. If it makes it any better I didn’t expect him to...’

Meg looks up and fixes her with expertly outlined eyes. She put the sweater she’d rescued from Scott on when they were outside: it’s oversized, the kind of thing you wouldn’t expect Meg to wear and hangs down past the hem of her shorts. Apart for the strap of her camisole poking out where it’s slipped off one shoulder she could be naked underneath... and where did that come from? Taylor pushes the thought away and swallows hard.

‘I never thought he’d actually leave you,’ Taylor presses on, wishing Meg would look away. She suddenly feels horribly guilty but maybe she deserves that. ‘I mean why would he when...’  
She trails off and looks away. When he could have you, she thinks.

‘He’s a douchebag,’ Meg says firmly, then flops backwards and goes back to staring pensively at the ceiling. Taylor, imagining being stood up by Scott in front of the whole school, can’t bring herself to defend him.

‘As much as I’m loving this totally not-awkward conversation,’ Meg drawls. ‘We wouldn’t have to talk to each other if you put a movie on.’

Meg turns her nose up at most of Taylor’s movies so they end up watching Cruel Intentions. It’s a bit too relevant to their situation for Taylor’s tastes but Meg doesn’t seem to mind.

‘When I grow up, I want to be her,’ Meg announces, at one point as Sarah Michelle Geller does something particularly evil and sexy. As far as Taylor’s concerned she’s already there but there’s no way she’s bolstering Meg Nelson’s ego.

‘She was better as Buffy,’ Taylor manages by way of an answer.

‘Well yeah,’ Meg rolls her eyes. ‘Water is also wet.’

They don’t say anything for a while after that because they just agreed on something and it’s freaking Taylor out. By the time Meg’s brother arrives Meg has slumped back again, her thigh resting lightly against Taylor’s side. At first she’s sure it’s some kind of psychological warfare but then this is Meg Nelson, who’s dated half the football team and doesn’t get changed under a towel after gym. A brush of skin can’t possibly mean as much to her as Taylor, who only kissed a guy for the first time a few weeks ago. Can it? Her leg is warm where it presses against Taylor’s side, skin on skin.

It’s a relief when Meg’s cell phone buzzes at the same time the doorbell rings but Taylor still hesitates for a second before she gets up and stops the DVD.

‘In the alternative ending they team up,’ Meg says as Taylor hands the box to her. ‘Kathryn and that boring blonde girl. I wish they’d left it that way.’

It’s just a piece of movie trivia, Taylor is still telling herself as she lies awake in the early hours. It didn’t mean anything.

 

-o0o-

When the time comes for Scott to cast Taylor off, he at least does it somewhere semi private. They’re in the music room, a stand of sheet music between them. Taylor skims her eyes along the first few bars, hearing the music in her head until the sudden vertigo has passed and she trusts herself to speak. Her hands shake a little but her voice, through some small miracle is still.

‘Susan Flores?’ she asks. ‘Isn’t she your lab partner?’

Scott nods, a little guiltily. His eyes are dreamy. ‘She wants to be a marine biologist.’

Taylor imagines him with Meg, saying in the same tone ‘she plays guitar.’ But then Meg had never got an explanation, had she?

‘I didn’t realise that was a turn on,’ she says coldly. It seems to her the sort of thing Meg would say but it’s a lot better than what she wants to do, which is cling onto him and ask what she’s done wrong.

‘I just feel,’ Scott fidgets. ‘We’re better as friends, you know?’

‘If that’s what you want.’ It’s not what Taylor wants. She feels like he’s pulled her heart out and stamped on the broken pieces.

Scott rubs his neck. ‘It’s just, I don’t feel that connection, any more, you know?’

Taylor follows his hand with her eyes, just so she won’t have to look at his face. Then she sees it. The air leaves her lungs like she’s taken a dodgeball to the chest.

‘What is that?’ she asks.

Scott’s hand closes compulsively but he still tries to play innocent. To late: Taylor’s seen it.  
‘What’s what?’

‘The love bite on your neck,’ Taylor replies. ‘Susan’s I assume? At least I hope for her sake it’s hers.’

Scott zips his hoody up to his throat. ‘That’s nothing. It’s just... shaving. I cut myself.’

Taylor hears Meg’s hollow, defensive laugh come out of her own mouth. ‘What do you shave with, a vacuum cleaner?’

‘It’s not-’

‘Get out.’

‘Taylor-’

 

‘Get. Out.’ Taylor stands, turning over the music stand. Sheets of music fan out around her feet and she doesn’t care. Her hands twitch, begging to curl into fists. Scott gets out.

-o0o-

Taylor is huddled under the bleachers when Meg finds her. They’re not friends exactly, it’s just... if Meg can’t think of the answer in Spanish, Taylor mouths it to her; if Taylor’s caught in the rain, Meg will give her a lift. Meg’s been clocking in some serious time on Taylor’s Xbox and although Meg hasn’t said anything, Taylor kind of suspects Meg’s behind the fact that the popular kids are no longer leaving scrawled notes calling her a whore in her locker. Usually. High school kids are mean.

Meg drops down onto the ground beside her. She doesn’t offer a hug but their shoulders are touching and the warmth of her arm is enough to make Taylor stop crying. Meg’s legs are long and tan under her short cheer uniform. She drops a wrapped package onto Taylor’s lap.  
If Taylor gets her heart broken Meg will bring her a sandwich apparently. Taylor wonders what has to happen for her to get cake.

‘I’d have brought you spicy meatball,’ Meg says. ‘But cafeteria meat is, like, ridiculously bad for you.’

Taylor hiccups. ‘So you brought me egg, cress and salmonella?’

‘Just as much protein and a fraction of the fat,’ Meg informs her piously and then, apparently without irony, pulls a hip flask from god knows where inside her uniform. ‘You want some?’

‘W-What is that?’

‘My travelling medicine cabinet: good for Dutch courage, menstrual cramps, head aches, heart breaks, coughs, colds, flu, sore throats, break ups, break outs and impromptu first dates,’ Meg replies promptly.

‘Break outs?’ Taylor asks, despite herself. ‘L-Like spots?’

‘It’ll make you feel better,’ Meg shrugs. ‘Hey, do you think peach schnapps is healthier than, like, butterscotch schnapps?’

‘They make butterscotch schnapps?’

‘It is an offence onto man and god,’ Meg tells her solemnly. ‘But yeah. It exists.’

They fall into silence, which Taylor breaks.

‘How did you know?’ Taylor asks.

Meg winces. ‘I saw them making out in the lunch line. Thought you might want to avoid the cafeteria today.’

Taylor unwraps the sandwich and takes a bite so she won’t have to talk. It’s not actually that bad, which makes her feel worse.

‘You’ll have to face them eventually,’ Meg continues. ‘But whatever, that’s just part of life.’

Taylor shakes her head. ‘Life was easier when I didn’t date.’

‘My life’d be easier if I didn’t have to stretch for an hour a day.’ Meg shrugs. ‘Doesn’t mean I’m going to quit the team.’

A month ago Taylor would have sniffed at the way she talks about cheerleading like it’s a real sport. Now she wonders how many footballers can do the splits.

‘Anything worth doing is going to hurt a bit,’ Meg says, taking a swig of schnapps. ‘Doesn’t mean you should just stay home and watch cable.’

Taylor thinks about that and Meg mistakes it for her still being upset. ‘Hey,’ Meg says, putting an arm around her shoulder. ‘At least you’ve got me.’

The breath nearly goes out of Taylor’s body. Meg Nelson is touching her, her mouth close enough to kiss. Her hair is brushing Taylor’s shoulder and she smells of bodyspray and schnapps. This is one of those times you have to do something stupid and hope you don’t fall. That worked so well the last time, a part of her thinks and is forcefully pushed aside. Impromptu first dates, she thinks. It meant nothing. It almost certainly meant nothing. It might have meant something. Carefully she lets her hand fall off her own knee and settle near the top of Meg’s thigh. Meg doesn’t object and Taylor finds her thumb tracing tentative circles on the bare skin. Meg answers by rearranging Taylor’s head so it rests on her shoulder. They sit there in silence for a while.

When the bell rings they ignore it.


End file.
